


Equilibria

by magistralucis (Solitary_Shadow)



Series: The Consolations of Philosophy [14]
Category: Daft Punk
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Depressing, Electroma, M/M, Robot!Daft Punk, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitary_Shadow/pseuds/magistralucis
Summary: I suppose this is the correct time to post this.[The scene retelling ofElectromawhere 'Guy' picks up what's left of 'Thomas'.The scene'Epilogue'omits, in other words. Thomas/Guy, Guy POV, short and simple. It was an honour to fandom with you all.]
Relationships: Thomas Bangalter/Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
Series: The Consolations of Philosophy [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/77302
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	Equilibria

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Daft Punk, this is strictly a work of fiction and I do not profit from nor claim to represent true aspects of their lives in this story.**
> 
> The fact the boys chose to go out on the exact note of _Electoma_ makes this hard, but also easy, at the same time. The content of this story should be a surprise to nobody at all whatsoever. I'd prefer to think the Guy-Manuel of this fic is speaking through his _Electroma_ -self, not the present-tense no-longer-DP self, but it seems for the purposes of ['Epilogue'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuDX6wNfjqc) they may be the same.
> 
> I'm not really coherent. I'm sorry about that. I want to give you all a hug.

**Equilibria - A Daft Punk Fanfiction**

\---------------

Time is passing and I do not have time.

I have revisited this moment a thousand times since the incident, every second giving me a different perspective, a new grain of history to heap upon the rest. The longer I spend mulling over the matter, the longer the distance between us grows. So it is with some regret - _some,_ the rest have already dulled - that I tell you this, Thomas.

Your going does not reach me deeply, a one-fingered piano note only; soft as the flutter of a robin’s wing, regretful diminuendo. It was meant to happen some day. Even though we spent the past few weeks believing that _some day might be tomorrow but it will not be today_ , we both knew that the end was coming, and the only question that remained between us was _which_ one of us would fold first. There is little sadness in that, because I know we both did not mean that badly. We weren’t giving up, rather waiting for a sign, by mutual agreement. You were the one who stopped our waiting, that was all. It could have easily been me in some other world.

But _that_ is a different world. This one is ours, or _was_ , rather, before you left for further pastures than I can call. No song of mine will reach you now, not that I would be able to craft any without you. I am like a record spinning without a needle, piano marionette with strings severed and loose, voiceless rhythm stretching towards infinity. Heartbeat out of season.  
How strange it is, then, that it took no more than one minute to erase such an essential presence such as yours. I have lingered here for two hundred times that and still cannot bring myself to leave; I have one final duty to you to complete before I go. Why one needs so much longer to perform the the lesser act of _distancing_ , I don’t know, but I must endure it for the time being.

Let no one say that life is easier than death. If you could call this a life.  
Desert, do you say? - you have deserted me, Thomas.

Amidst the countless pieces of you are some larger, recognizable shards, one of which prods against my shoe sharply when I stoop down to gather up what I can. Keeping the other, smaller fragments cradled in my left hand, I pick up the shard and look at it. Half of me looks back at myself from the surface, distorted from the curve, both inside and out. The force of the blast has streaked sand grains all over your remains; I rub my thumb over the surface and it does not clear, the small scratches now permanent, dulling my image.

Thomas, this other is not I.  
This visage hardly looks like mine. Who is this creature, you magician, you, that you have conjured and imprisoned from the ashes? Clearly we have already spent too long apart; I can hardly call you my other half now, if this is the best you can do. With every grain of sand sliding between my fingertips we lose each other a little more. The shadow you left behind has destroyed the shadow of my face.

I lift my head. Extend my arm, hold out the shard on my palm, mirror-side up.

That’s better. Seems like only the sky lives there now.

Funny how things work out. Just two days ago I tried to hold you in my hands, but your grief was too big, too elusive. I tried to retain some kind of grasp between us but love got in the way. I confess: I am _very_ tempted to take this part of you with me. If not _other half_ \- if not my _reflection_ \- then perhaps, with time, I can find a different perspective to regard you with. I pocket the shard and carry on with my work, piling up a tangible presence over your ground zero once again. I can recognize you even less in this impossible heap than I could see myself in the mockery you have made of my image, but it will have to do for now. I only regret that this is all I can do. This is not how I imagined you would ever look like.

What were you to me, Thomas?  
I don’t know what I was to you, but you were my lifelong friend. The two of us, weaving in and out between accompaniment and melody as the mood suited us, instruments together without illusion of autonomy. We needed each other in order to be played. It’s a perspective between us that I will miss, that’s for sure.

If my body could mean anything at all to you now, Thomas, know this and spare me no concern. My body is only as good as yours, and always has been. That hasn’t changed. With your absence you have rendered me sterile, unable to find the melody in the sand any more than you can in your present state. The question of our bodies together is only a _question_ now, not a _quest_ ; there will be no more answers, just endless retellings directed to complete strangers, the notes turning stale with every revolution. Perhaps that is only fair. Without you, I cannot be used, I cannot be played, I am entirely my own.

It is the music I miss, not the instrument.  
If I could cry I would but it wouldn’t be for you. Killing you meant killing the _vessel_. Uncontent with our current state of affairs you allowed me one last touch, a mere pull rather than _play_ \- then, home to devastating melodies that I never could have imagined, you threw yourself into the void with one final solo. And even though every second pulls you further apart from me, I cannot forget. A burst of light as you are freed, but then the notes scatter and you break, break violently upon the night’s Plutonian shore, merciless and cruel. As brittle as the glory is the face.

But enough; you left because you weren’t happy, so I shan’t dwell on this perspective any longer. Don’t feel sorry for me, Thomas. I can just imagine you now, apologetic for my stepping back, hand curling softly in itself as you try to find the words and fail. Within my memory, like a child you wear a hurt and absent look, but I am forever soft for the silence into which you fell so sadly.

What are you thinking?  
Do you still love me?

What will you do when I throw you away?

They say you shouldn’t change the music from what the maestro instructed and maybe you shouldn’t, but at least you left me enough room for interpretation. You tried your best. And somewhere down the line, you made it all right for me to say that without doubt. You were decent.

I think that is enough for this world.

I must go now, Thomas. The night is long and I have my own appointments to attend to. Keep time with time.  
Here you may rest forevermore. The only way I could pay my respects to you, aside from my long soliloquy, was to return you to a heap of dust; I hope you don’t mind. I’ve changed my mind about the shard as well; it would be false to keep a mere part of you with me, as if that could amend my failure. To have taken this shard with me would be to have kept open a door to endless misery - comparing notes between this memory and that under the pretense that it could _matter_ , thrusting fake electric suns in the faces of things best left buried, the nameless becoming wrongly named and your savage darkness bright.

Let this piece rest here with the rest of you. Under the sunset we gleam gold alike; I will let you go now.

Don’t worry about me. Spending those final hours with you was the right thing to do. The only way for me has become clear: I must go to that place where the sun kisses the horizon goodnight. Tomorrow she shall kiss somewhere else, but tonight I have kept that place in mind, and I will go there to follow the sun’s example.  
The sand rustles beneath my feet. My littleness makes but a private sound, a small song of a small existence. There will never be a backbeat to that sound again, but it’s something.

Goodbye, Thomas.  
Goodbye, musical notes, sweet intervals, delicate vibrato.  
Goodbye, our duets, dissolved contrapunctus, forever and ever.  
Soon the birds of the desert will keep me company, settling on my shoulder. They’ll sing in monotone.

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you have already read this before. This is a drabble I posted outside AO3 years ago and never transferred here, for whatever reason - I confess my reasoning blurs, for I've spent a lot of time not writing in this fandom since then (save for _Filament_ ). Perhaps I was subconsciously saving it for this day, given that DP had already been inactive for years by the time I wrote it. Perhaps I was swept up in the flow of _Electroma_ and its general tragedy. I haven't spent a single second not being swept up in _Electroma_ since I watched it, after all, I must have watched it hundreds of times by now. And that was the note DP chose to end on, too. Whatever the reason, the story existed, and I suppose now was as good a time as any to publish it.
> 
> The robots had a good run, folks. So did we, I think. But the fandom won't just vanish because the robots stopped, nor will fans stop creating fanart and fanfiction of them for a long time. I'm not yet saying goodbye to the DP fandom. I'll still be here and I'll be writing if the muse revisits, or if anyone needs me to fulfill a request - but for now, this story is a farewell to the robots.
> 
> They'll live forever.


End file.
